Apple Aiming at Kindle Singles

Here’s a quick FAQ (has been around a while) from Apple detailing how you get a book on Apple’s iBookstore. You can compare and contrast it with Amazon’s for the Kindle Singles here.

Even more information about publishing from Apple’s iBooks Author tool can be found in the help for the software. There’s a very interesting, distinctly different, feel between these two FAQs.

I am talking about Kindle Singles because I think Apple is really bringing the fight to Amazon, the fight for independent publishers. We already know that Amazon wants these writers, but Apple seems to be making it a bit more competitive for this niche.

This is a line from Amazon’s Kindle Singles FAQ:

We are currently not accepting how-to manuals, public domain works, reference books, travel guides, or children’s books.

Do you notice a common thread amongst those types of books?

Imagery.

How-to manuals, travel guides, and children’s books — these three types of books need to have great images in them to make the books infinitely more useable and entertaining. Beyond the imagery the design and layout of these books can often make or break them — something that you would be hard pressed to control when the book is read on a keyboard-less Amazon Kindle.

Black and white e-ink screens, well, don’t do so well with this type of media — the iPad though? Yeah, now you see why this is a shot across Amazon’s bow.

Amazon also limits the word count and price of Kindle Singles — I have yet to see mention of Apple doing that. Both services review books before publishing them, though it’s fair to say Apple will be just — if not more — stringent that Amazon.

This should be interesting.

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tl;dr

Here’s a quick FAQ (has been around a while) from Apple detailing how you get a book on Apple’s iBookstore. You can compare and contrast it with Amazon’s for the Kindle Singles here. Even more information about publishing from Apple’s iBooks Author tool can be found in the help for the software. There’s a very […]